Villager Voice Magazine
by AURA3
AURA3: Dirty Angels
Village Voice Magazine
After spending the last several years on the road, the female, acoustic, pop/rock trio AURA3 have taken the last six months off to record and release their newest CD entitled "Dirty Angels." Prior to recording the album, the ladies toured extensively with former Monkee Peter Tork, singer/songwriter, James Lee Stanley and also opened for Firefall and The James House Band among others.
Marilyn Ingram, a lead singer and small percussionist for the band reflected on AURA3's current project following a recent performance at "Merlin's Concert," a benefit for the Forsyth County Humane Society.
"Slowly but surely we had more than a few tunes in the live shows that were not on any of our CD's. I had written quite a few of them myself. Except for the YouTube recordings uploaded by friends and fans, no one could collect those particular songs and we had requests frequently. I felt it was high time we got back into a studio."
Dodi Shore, the group's guitar, bass and blues harp player and vocalist Nancy Smith agreed. Shore and Smith also contribute songs to the band's repertoire of original music.
The CD Release for Dirty Angels will be held at Atelier Studios located at 619 N. Trade Street from 7-10 PM during the First Friday Gallery Hop on June 6. The band will perform all the songs on the new CD and some of the tracks from their first two albums. Also appearing with AURA3 will be fifteen oriental dancers from Three Graces Entertainment and their artistic director, Teresa Dickerson, aka Saphira. All eighteen ladies have plans to create a unique evening of music and dance.
In Atelier Studios main gallery there will also be an exhibition of visual artwork based on the theme "Dirty Angels" that will open the night of the CD release. Featured in the collection will be the CD cover artwork, selected from the submissions in response to a state wide call for artists to design the cover. The work was created by graphic designers Jess Zimmerman and Sandy McClosky of Play Dead Designs and depicts an angelic figure bathed in light shining through native pines and deciduous trees.
The artwork is a response to the title track, Dirty Angels, written by NC natives Ingram and Smith about the place they call home. The song's chorus, "dirty angels, unclipped wings, tarnished halos, filled with dreams, we've got red clay in our veins - with love, from Carolina" is a nod to Ingram's love for North Carolina. Most of her family settled and have lived in the Wachovia Tract area since the early 1700's. Smith is a native of Clemmons, NC and Shore, who was born in in NJ and grew up in WV, has lived in the Lewisville area since the 1980's. Shore also has duel citizenship and is a Swiss National.
"Dodi is also Swiss, so once in a while we have to let her play the accordion," laughs Ingram, but Dodi can play just about anything you put into her hands - or under her feet. We have a lot of fun with whatever happens. You really get to hear her play on this CD which Nancy and I love."
In addition to the original tunes written by Ingram, Shore and Smith is a lone cover, a tune by a friend of the band, singer-songwriter James Lee Stanley. "We asked Jimmy some time ago if we could do an arrangement of yet another of his fabulous songs", Ingram revealed. "Happily James was all for it and the result is our version of his popular song "Dirty Job". I guess we seem to have a kind of dirt theme going on with this album, but then it never hurts to stand your ground if that ground is worth standing."
